198. The Journey to True Self-Connection with Coco Madari

In this episode, Coco Madari talks about their history of navigating through relationships filled with control, abuse, and gaslighting, and how self-help and therapy became their lifeline in such circumstances. 

This episode isn't just about relationships; it's about the high stakes that we invest in them, the addictive nature of these bonds, and how to handle them when they become overwhelming. Coco Madari shares their tale of self-doubt birthed from harmful romantic and familial relationships and we delve into the intricate human psyche, the havoc created by autopilot coping mechanisms, and the impact on highly sensitive individuals. 

Featured on the Show: Coco Madari

Coco Madari (they/them) is BIPOC queer multi-talented artist, performer, singer/songwriter, and double-certified coach who helps HSPs juggle multiple creative endeavours at once.

• Coco’s Facebook
• Coco’s Instagram
• Coco’s Linktree

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Transcript

Sade Curry: 0:29

Hey, hi everybody. Welcome back to the dating after divorce podcast. I am your host, Sade Curry, and I have here on Zoom with me a special guest, Coco Madari. Coco is a fellow coach, colleague, friend, client. We have like been on this multi-year journey together. Coco is a BIPOC queer multi-talented artist. They are a performer, singer, songwriter, double certified coach and they help highly sensitive persons juggle multiple creative endeavors at one time. Welcome to the podcast, Coco.

Coco Madari: 1:11

Thank you, I'm so excited to be here. I was so jealous seeing all the people on your all these like amazing people on your podcast and I was like, where am I?

Sade Curry: 1:20

I'm so glad, so glad you reached out so that we could tell your story. Yeah, all right, when do we begin?

Coco Madari: 1:29

Well, I was just going to say, yeah, like we worked together for about a year, yes, and when I hired you I wanted to like find my person. And then I think, like through the work we did together and just in like following my own journey, realizing that I am polyamorous and I want to date multiple people, and I want to kind of juggling or playing with the idea of either being like solo polyamorous, where I like don't have a primary partner, or having multiple primary partners and what that could look like. So, yeah, I know it definitely, since even just working together, there's been a lot of transformation and change and all that stuff.

Sade Curry: 2:34

So yeah, I mean we could start at the beginning, because I think one of the things that had you reaching out to me was the fact that your relationship at the time had just broken up and it was similar. Even though you weren't married and it wasn't a divorce. The relationship had some narcissistic abuse that was happening and I remember just us talking, even before we started working together, a phone call you had a lot of questions about, like is this bad? If this is happening, let's start there. You want to start with that first relationship, kind of what you were experiencing. How long were you in that relationship? What eventually led to the breakup?

Coco Madari: 3:18

Yeah. So I actually want to touch on the relationship before then, first because that relationship really was the catalyst for me getting into therapy and then realizing the benefits of therapy and just like totally changing my life and then finding coaching and then all of that. So whenever people ask me, like how did you realize that you were a coach? Like it was all because of this first relationship where a month before we broke up, we were looking at rings together and like trying on rings and so, even though I haven't been quote unquote like married officially, I have had multiple relationships that were like, yes, we're getting married, we are each other's person and there was like that commitment there.

Coco Madari: 4:15

So yeah, like where I started in terms of my romantic relationships was just a complete disaster. Like nothing less than a complete abusive, controlling, possessive disaster was my first relationship where, yeah, there was just so much daily abuse that like I look back now and can't believe that I even took it for a second, let alone for three and a half years and once I actually found coaching. After that first relationship ended and I found coaching and was doing better for myself, I met this other person who kind of he was less so I mean, there definitely was abuse more so just like making fun of me and like putting me down definitely is abuse, for sure, but just a different kind and more so on the neglect side. That was the main thing, like he didn't care about me and all that. And I think at that time I kind of wanted that because the relationship before that was so controlling, I felt so suffocated all of the time and having someone who was ignoring me actually felt safer.

Sade Curry: 5:46

So yeah, I really had said that was and I'm trying to remember the situation where it was almost like there was an almost like an agreement to not be committed, and if you could remember that and it was like yes, you were like yes, because then that felt like oh right it felt like it could be polyamory yeah. Like well, you wanted a commitment but you agreed not having a commitment because it felt safer than the other relationship where you had had a commitment. That felt like control.

Coco Madari: 6:18

Yeah, yeah, I think I was open to polyamory. I wanted to do it right, though. I wanted to have conversations about the relationship that we had. I wanted to have parameters and all that. But for him it was more like I'm going to have these other casual relationships and I'm going to do what I want and you're just going to deal with it, and then I'm going to thought work myself into feeling OK. So that's when I found thought work, and so I really gaslit myself into having a happy relationship with this person.

Sade Curry: 6:55

Yeah, let's talk about that for a little bit, because I think this happens to a lot of women. I've talked to a lot of women who are considering leaving a marriage or have left a marriage, and then they get introduced to concepts like well, another person doesn't make you happy, they're not responsible for your feelings, you're responsible for your feelings, you're responsible for your happiness. And then they turn that against themselves to try to convince themselves that they should be in a relationship. What's the balance there?

Coco Madari: 7:26

Yeah, so first of all, I don't identify as a woman, but I was definitely socialized as a woman and I don't even like, yes, they use it against themselves. But also it is something that is really drilled in, like I remember I had just read about someone saying that they witnessed a coaching call with a specific coach that the person was talking about basically who was in an abusive relationship, and this coach was basically telling them that it's all their thoughts, so it's not even fully we're just doing it to ourselves. It is something that is also drilled in to us in certain healing spaces, in the media, all those kinds of things. So what is the line? That's a good question.

Coco Madari: 8:37

I think when I was in that space, I was so proud of how I could create this relationship with my thoughts, because you hear from some coaches saying, like, your relationship with someone is your thoughts about them and so if you change your thoughts about them, you change your relationship. So I changed my thoughts, I did all the things, and so I was able to create some positive emotions through that gaslighting and I was really proud of myself that I was able to just create an amazing relationship with anyone. You can create an amazing relationship with anyone, and I think the turning point for me in this shift was really starting to get in touch with my body first of all, and all of the anger and resentment that I was harboring Because he would do or say something that was putting me down or whatever, and I would change my thoughts around it. But then the wound has not disappeared, the hurt hasn't disappeared, the truth hasn't gone away, and there was that piece of them, and it also was a piece of just having a coach who was my sex coach at the time.

Coco Madari: 10:13

I was getting coached by her and I was telling her about how, when I was trying to start something sexy with him and I sat on him and made a funny face, and then he was like, if you're trying to be sexy right now, it's not working. And I was telling her this with the intention of working through it for myself so I could feel better. And she said to me we can work on this as much as we want, but at the end of the day, do you want to be with someone who talks to you like that? That just blew my mind.

Sade Curry: 11:10

I was like, oh, Like, I have a choice in the kind of person that I am with.

Coco Madari: 11:19

Yeah, yeah, and she was like you know it would be different if you were married to this person and you knew that you wanted to commit to the relationship and you know you really wanted to work through this, you were really committed to working through it. But at the time our relationship was like we were quote unquote polyamorous it wasn't real polyamory but and then we became an agamist and then we were at the place of like opening up our relationship, quote unquote. But again it wasn't really like a something that was communicated or whatever. He just wanted a casual relationship, essentially, where he wasn't providing any sort of like support or anything, just wanted to have the good parts of the relationship, he said, which is essentially, yeah, the only certain parts of me, only certain parts of only the fun parts of the relationship, none of the work and so. So then that really like helped me see that that was a really like, really important question to think about. And then the answer was obviously no, and then that's when I ended that relationship.

Sade Curry: 12:50

Yeah, yeah. What role did you know, the childhood, how you grew up, how you were raised? Have on, oh yeah, of the relationships you were in early on.

Coco Madari: 13:03

Yeah, totally Well, my first relationship was essentially, my relationship with my mom is exact. It was so similar. Their birthdays were two days apart, Both of them are Aries, Both of it like very, very similar in so many ways. And it was just constant fighting, constant abuse, constant drama, yeah, and just feeling like just crying. So much, so many tears, so much like despair, so much all of that and so that. So it was just. You know, that's what felt like love, that's what felt like, felt like home.

Coco Madari: 13:46

And I remember, I remember actually thinking that, like I wasn't in therapy, I wasn't doing any of that, Like he didn't want me to go to therapy. We had lots of big fights about it. I don't even know what his reasoning was. I know what the real reason was obviously because he didn't want me to be healthy. But, oh, I remember thinking like. I remember knowing that I didn't really love him and that I didn't actually want to be with him, but something that my birth mother used to say was like be with someone who is less attractive than you, and then they'll never cheat on you. He did cheat on me, but yeah, he was less attractive.

Sade Curry: 14:38

So in a sense you were, I wasn't attracted to him.

Coco Madari: 14:41

It's not that like, yeah, I wasn't attracted to him. I remember I was thinking about this today, about how my body just felt like I needed, like it was just a huge no. But then I would like gaslight myself listening to like love songs to try to convince myself to love him because he wanted me and I had been so burned in high school and whatever around dudes who play with me and, like you know, reject me and whatever it is and I just felt like and what he also told me is that I can't do anything better. It's like oh, he would say, oh, I treat you so well. No one's going to treat you like this.

Sade Curry: 15:23

Yeah, that's. That's such a common line, such a good. You know, no one, no one else is going to ever want you.

Coco Madari: 15:34

And then they tell you how good they treat you, even though they're not treating you well.

Sade Curry: 15:38

Yes, you know, and a lot of that comes down to you know it is, it is gaslighting. That word means so many things to so many people. Yeah, I like to think of it as taking advantage of a person not being not owning their own reality.

Coco Madari: 15:58

Yeah, taking advantage of a person, self-doubt.

Sade Curry: 16:00

Yes, yes, and of course you know, people, socialized as women, tend to have a lot of self-doubt because we're groomed to second guess ourselves. Are you sure you want to do that? Do you want to do that? Are you going to wear that?

Coco Madari: 16:15

Also like you are a woman, right. Like being conditioned to believe that you are a certain gender as well, right, like I was already in so much self-doubt because I am trans and I was, you know, putting myself in this. I am a, I am a woman box, right. So I was just riddled with self-doubt and yeah. And so there was that one. And then the second relationship was my relationship with my dad, and their birthdays were a day apart or two days apart. Same thing.

Coco Madari: 16:51

Narcissists didn't actually care about me at all, just used me to make himself look good. You know, like lots and lots and lots of like you should feel confident about yourself, like I'm only attracted to you when you're, when you're confident, but then I'm also going to put you down. Yeah, yeah, so it was. It was pretty much exactly like the universe was like handed it to me on a silver platter. I was like here's your relationship with your mom, and then here's your relationship with your dad. And then the next one was like my relationship with my sister, and it was just like, yeah, got a lot, a lot of insight into you know, and and and got to explore the memories that had been repressed Through those romantic relationships that mirrored those familial relationships.

Sade Curry: 17:57

Yeah, so what was you, what were the shifts that you had along the way, like moving through these relationships and then coming to terms with hey, I need to do some work.

Coco Madari: 18:08

Mm. Hmm. Well, I knew I'm in my first relationship, that I was fucked up, like I remember having the thought I am fucked, I am not OK, I need help. And so I like, as soon as he broke up with me Because I wasn't doing something that he said like oh, if you don't do this, I'm breaking up with you. I went into therapy like right away Because I knew he was going to try to get me back within like a month. And so I was like I need to get my head right. I need to be at least in a place where, when he comes back and he tries to pull all the stops to try to get me back, I am ready to say no. And sure enough, he did come back.

Coco Madari: 20:06

And then try to get me back and then I was able to say no, it wasn't. It wasn't easy. I thought about him every day. It was, it was, it was so painful. It was, it was so painful. The whole, like a whole breakup, was so painful.

Sade Curry: 20:23

What change that made you able to say no when he wanted you back.

Coco Madari: 20:34

I think it was just having that physical distance from him. I had that physical distance. I was reading a lot of self-help books. Then I asked him if he wanted to meet up with me. At the time I was at a weak spot where I was thinking maybe we can work on it. Blah, blah, blah. I bought him these books that I had bought. I brought him up. Then I remember, when we met up, just my stomach just shriveled up into a raisin. I felt like my breathing got shallower, I lost my appetite, I couldn't eat. My nervous system was just completely hijacked. That was the first time I actually noticed that Because I had that distance. Then, seeing them again, it's like, oh, this is how I was feeling the whole time. And so, yeah, just having that awareness and just continuing to just focus and focus and keep focusing on my self-development and on my own growth, that led me to the next relationship, which was also bad, but it was bad in a different way at least. At least it wasn't bad in the same way. Yeah, how is it?

Sade Curry: 22:07

different. This is the third relationship. No this was the second. The second, ok, yeah. Well between the first and the second was therapy. Yeah, ok.

Coco Madari: 22:19

Yeah, exactly. And then between that oh right, I forgot about the one who ended up stalking me. Remember that one? Mm-hmm, yeah, yeah, OK yeah. And then the one after the second one was with a woman and we were only together for a month but she thought that I was an ancient god and there was this whole spiritual mentor ship happening and lots of weird shit. So I think I like the fact that throughout the whole experience, I was always still working on myself and that in every new relationship things were at least different. They might have been unhealthy in different ways, but at least I wasn't repeating the exact same pattern. I was growing, I was learning new things.

Sade Curry: 23:26

Yeah, were they getting better? Do you say the relationships got better as you grew?

Coco Madari: 23:32

It was still shit, just smelled different.

Sade Curry: 23:36

So then, what changed and when? When did you feel like oh yeah, I've moved from terrible relationships into a more healthy way of thinking and being in relationships?

Coco Madari: 23:49

I think. Well, it's only happened very recently, but I think it's in realizing my addictive tendencies when it comes to relationships and having, I think, more healthy friendships has helped me to not feel so lonely and therefore feel like I need to be in a relationship and therefore taking things too quickly and then having things not be healthy as a result.

Sade Curry: 24:25

Yeah, can you explain what the addictive nature of being in a relationship or being addicted to a relationship? What does that feel like or look like, if you remember?

Coco Madari: 24:36

Oh yeah, it feels like you definitely get a high. Maybe you're ruminating about, fantasizing about them a lot, and it's feeling good. But then you end up with this feeling of anxiety or attachment or wanting to, or desperation and wanting to reach out to them, wanting them to reach out to you, but then it doesn't feel good anymore. It's almost like you took your drug. You're happy, and then now you're starting to feel the calm down and then you want more of the drug. Yeah, yeah so it's very, very, very similar.

Sade Curry: 25:19

Yeah.

Coco Madari: 25:20

Versus more healthy relationships. It just a longer. It feels like. It just takes longer. It's more steady. It's more based on actual intimacy versus this like I have to have you now.

Sade Curry: 25:42

Yeah.

Coco Madari: 25:43

I have a feeling.

Sade Curry: 25:43

Yeah, the pressure or the high stakes. There are no high stakes around being with the person or there is not a lot of meaning about. I think a lot of the root of that is having it mean something about you to be in a relationship with a particular person.

Coco Madari: 26:02

And I'm actually reading right now about highly sensitive people in love, and I'm a highly sensitive person, and one thing that it was talking about in the book was how highly sensitive people can sometimes have that feeling of high stakedness when it comes to interacting with or flirting with people from quote unquote the opposite sex or whoever. You're, I guess, interested in how that actually can happen and is something that is not only a part of it but can be worked through. I think, regardless of whether the other human is healthy or not, we still have to take the responsibility for ourselves to be able to notice when we're starting to get into that place of things are starting to feel high stakes, things are starting to feel like I'm starting to feel desperate, I'm starting to feel like I'm wanting to attach and then working through it with a therapist or with whoever.

Sade Curry: 27:19

Yeah, and I agree with that. I think there's a lot of shame in the cultural narrative around being a person who maybe attaches too quickly or has that tendency, or having an attachment style that presents in that way yeah, and it's one of the reasons I don't talk about attachment styles a lot, just because it's another thing that we tend to use against ourselves. And now we have an anxious attachment style and so now there's something wrong with us that we've got to go run off to fix. Yeah, before we can be in a healthy relationship versus. Oh, first of all, I'm human, my brain is going to do weird things. And if my brain does weird things in a certain way, if it does try to attach to people too quickly, I can just be like oh OK, this is what my brain does, yeah, and we can just make it neutral, be self-aware and create a path, or what you call a path, a protocol, a practice, create space where we give ourselves the room and the tools to make better choices, even if we don't do it in that way.

Coco Madari: 28:37

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And just having this conversation is making me realize too how, or remember how complicated it is being human.

Sade Curry: 28:54

Yes.

Coco Madari: 28:54

It's like so complicated, there's so many things, and I'm just floored at how many people can live out their lives without getting help on the complexity of their psyche and are able to still function. You know, or seem to function.

Sade Curry: 29:17

We don't know what happens post-hours, but yeah, I think I mean, if I were to look at myself before personal development, before coaching, before therapy, you just kind of an autopilot.

Coco Madari: 29:31

Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking too.

Sade Curry: 29:33

Yeah, you know you're kind of an autopilot. You kind of know, yeah, you're just going through the motions, checking the boxes, yeah, and if nothing bad happens, mm-hmm.

Coco Madari: 29:46

Or some like. So you do have an underlying feeling of anxiety, though, Like there is an undercurrent of at least for me of like doom and unhappiness.

Sade Curry: 29:57

I don't know if that's the same for everyone. That's what's scary about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't think everyone feels that nudge underneath.

Coco Madari: 30:06

Yeah, well, like I said, I'm a highly sensitive person, so I think that me functioning an autopilot costs me more. Like it's just it takes a bigger, a bigger toll, and I remember having moments of just like sitting in university in a class and then suddenly I couldn't see, or suddenly I felt like I was having a panic attack and I just like tried to stuff it down. Like, just like this, really just like this, can't happen. Right now we're shutting it down and yeah, I think for me it was just like a focus on achievement was my biggest. Like this is how we're gonna, just what we're gonna focus on, what we're gonna keep me an autopilot. Yeah, but yeah, it's not the same for everyone.

Sade Curry: 30:57

Yeah, and I remember when we worked together, we didn't approach the work from a place of you being a highly sensitive person, but looking back I'm like, oh yeah, well, that makes a lot of sense because we work through. We work through your childhood trauma, we work through friendships, because for a while, you, you know, we're looking for your person but then also building community. I think a lot of what we did was not necessarily to find a person even though that you were open and wanted that but was to build community, was to find where you belong and to create that safety to be around people. Yeah, you know, and now that we're having these conversations a little more recently, you know, having worked way back, it makes sense that building community was such a journey for you.

Coco Madari: 31:48

Yeah, it was so challenging Like it was. It was challenging to you know, being in it, being in an environment, a family environment, where I was being bullied and I was the scapegoat and the punching bag the emotional punching bag, the verbal abuse punching bag. What else am I going to do when I have friends? Right, I'm going to have friends who also treat me terribly and I remember. Looking back now, I think there were always people who cared about me. There were always people who I could have had a healthy relationship with, but I was too focused on trying to get those people who treated me badly to like me that I was.

Coco Madari: 32:35

I was, I was not able to have those kinds of relationships. Like throughout my whole journey. There were always people and actually I met someone who at Pride Festival I performed at Pride in Vancouver and during at the like Pride parade the week after I performed, I saw someone who I knew from elementary school and when I saw them I was like, oh my gosh, yeah, this person, they're like super sweet and just a solid human and I totally like forgot, yeah, and then, and then she messaged me and she's like yeah, I remember like you were like a such a good friend and like you're a solid person, I was like you're a solid person.

Sade Curry: 33:22

Yeah, yeah, and there's an explanation, you know, for that. Like you know, as you know, it's our brain just gets so caught up in looking for danger and trying to prevent danger. Danger looks like the most toxic person in the room and when you've had trauma and all of the things you're so focused on making sure that that person isn't going to hurt you that there's no room in your brain, there's no more. There's no attention left over for the people who are not dangerous, the good people, the healthy people, the nice people, the people who want you to belong with them. Yeah, there's no room to pay them any attention. Your brain doesn't even want to because it's like, well, these people are fine, they're not going to hurt me, so I'll just ignore them.

Sade Curry: 34:12

Yeah, and focus on this person and make sure that they don't hurt me, and we can do that for so long. Narcissistic, abusive relationships are the same way. Abusive situations are the same way. Women who are in abusive marriages tend to neglect their children. Even if they are trying to protect their children, they tend to neglect to nurture their children or to be emotionally available because they're so busy trying to make sure that this abusive person doesn't hurt everybody.

Coco Madari: 34:50

Oh, that's such a good point.

Sade Curry: 34:52

Such a good point.

Coco Madari: 34:53

Yeah, and I was also thinking about also at Pride I saw someone else who I knew in elementary school, who I didn't like, who wasn't really a safe person and who was kind of like a frenemy person, who would you know, whatever. But I saw them too and then they were like kind of felt like they were in the background in my mind, like they were kind of like a shadow person and I was like developing these other relationships with people and they felt bright to me, you know, and it was such a huge shift to not only not engage with those type of people but not even really notice them.

Sade Curry: 35:36

Yeah, yeah, Huge, that is huge. That's a huge shift. Yeah, what does? What does community look like for you now? Because I mean I want to hear about that process of building your network, building friendships. People who go through divorce often have to rebuild Community, Often have to rebuild friendships. What has that journey looked like for you?

Coco Madari: 36:00

Yeah, Well, when I cut out my whole family and moved to Vancouver Island, I cut out a lot of the people who I knew in Vancouver, partly because I just my nervous system was really fucked up and I just didn't feel safe at all and I was like I don't want anyone to know where I am, I don't want anyone to know where I'm going and this is just what I'm doing. So so I did that. So then I got here and I was just like, oh, I know no one, and yeah, and then, you know, got into a relationship and then that ended, and then I had no one again. And the turning point for me was when I when I became suicidal, when I became seriously suicidal and wanted to kill myself, and I thought who am I going to reach out to? And I just started that process of reaching out to people who I thought I could trust and then from there I just haven't stopped reaching out whenever I needed help or support or any of that, and through that I became a healthier person.

Coco Madari: 37:27

And so when I went back to Vancouver, I was able to reconnect with people who I severed the bond with and I explained to them what was happening with me and we were able to have a conversation about it and reconcile about it, and I'm still open to having conversations about it. But then that helped me to see how much community was there for me the whole time. It's that thing of when you're wrapped up in these talks or relationships, these all-encompassing codependent relationships, you don't see the community that is always there, that is always waiting for you.

Sade Curry: 38:08

Yeah, and you had spent quite some time I think 2021, maybe 2022 working on your ability to reach out, your ability to intentionally create relationships.

Coco Madari: 38:22

Yeah, yeah, doing that. And also to know, like it was just mind blowing to me to know that that's what you kind of have to do.

Sade Curry: 38:28

Yes, they don't just happen yeah.

Coco Madari: 38:34

I was like oh, that's why it hasn't been happening.

Sade Curry: 38:41

I'm just marveling, because you deliberately worked on those skills, literally practiced those skills. Okay, here's the kind of people and it was a lot of trial and error and practicing and doing and I want people who are creative. You wanted to work with people who are creative, people who were in music and entertainment, and you explored many different communities during that time before you moved and I'm just like, oh wow, and then when you found yourself in a whole new place not knowing anyone, it was literally back to basics. Yeah, yeah, back to the start one. We use that against ourselves. We just take it personally, like, oh, I don't have friends, that must be something wrong with me, not realizing that was never anything wrong with us. Yeah, we might have been in an environment that gave us messages that there was something wrong. Yeah, and if we could shift those messages, I realized, oh no, this is a very neutral process.

Coco Madari: 39:39

Mm-hmm and you can it's a very neutral process. Yeah, me and this really badass Black woman bookkeeper were having a little virtual coffee the other day and we were talking about money and we were talking about how making money is just a boring process of figuring out what works and trying things and just being consistent, like that's basically with anything. And it's the same thing with art. It's the same thing with music. Now, music is awesome, but I'm learning how to produce, I'm learning how to drum with my fingers and I'm learning how to make a song. It's, like you know, can be kind of boring and just like, let's just-. Dating is the same way.

Sade Curry: 40:24

Yeah, well, it's apps and you swipe, yeah, and if you're activated while you're doing that, then we got to take a step back to the healing and the emotional recovery and all those things. But when we're doing it right, it's actually quite boring. Mm-hmm. Creating friendships is quite boring. It's like, okay, am I a match for this person? Am I not a match? Oh, we tried that out. We had coffee, not quite the right vibe. Okay, great, nothing against that person, nothing against me. Let's have coffee with someone else. Yeah, yeah, exactly that's what it is, yeah, and I'm just really proud of the way you've embodied those skills.

Coco Madari: 41:04

Just over the years.

Sade Curry: 41:07

Like I'm like okay, collaborate with someone else, another one. You walk through a lot of collaboration projects, some that worked, some that didn't work, yeah yeah, some within romantic relationships that didn't work and then some that were more fruitful.

Coco Madari: 41:26

Yeah, yeah, exactly Exactly. I'm trying to think of one that worked. I'm like what's going on?

Sade Curry: 41:33

And that brings me to this question when are you now? Where are you now with romantic relationships, with friendships, with feeling safe in relationship or in community? Yeah, with all of the work that you've done, you talk about solo polyamory. What does that look like for you? So, what does the big R relationship look like for you?

Coco Madari: 41:59

Mm-hmm. Well, now, with romantic relationships, I'm noticing myself fall in love and just enjoying it and not making it mean like we're gonna be in a relationship now or this is gonna be my only person and therefore, because they're my only person, I have to think about, okay, are we actually a match or this is you know whatever? It's just like no, I can just like enjoy, and I'm noticing myself enjoying the whole process of getting to know people, versus like let's try to get to the sex, or let's try to get to the. We're in a partnership now, let's try, like you know, try to make it go somewhere instead of it just being like let me just enjoy this right now. Sounds like it.

Sade Curry: 42:52

Not being attached to the outcome.

Coco Madari: 42:54

Yes, yes, yeah. So much of that, just like this relationship is gonna be whatever it's meant to be. It could be friendship. It could be we go our separate ways. It could be whatever, and even the people who I have had relationships with here where I live now that didn't work out. I'm still open to like whatever can come from just being in this similar vicinity and being humans who are growing, and I'm just more open to whatever things might look like.

Sade Curry: 43:31

Love that. Yeah, I love the phrase being open to humans who are growing, because it feels and it sounds to me more like enjoying the journey the person who is in my space at this point in time, who is in a friendship space or is in a romantic relationship space, and I'm enjoying that now for whatever it is.

Coco Madari: 43:51

Exactly Like. Even I don't really like this person, and I don't have to, and also that might change, Right, that's my problem, that's my problem. That's my problem. Or this person doesn't seem to like me, and that's fine too, but we'll see what happens.

Sade Curry: 44:08

Yes, yes, yes, you know I love that you brought that up, because the reason we sometimes have those hard like okay, I don't like this person right now it seems like they don't like me. Gotta make a decision, gotta do something about it. It comes from a lack of safety. It feels like something bad is gonna happen if we don't deal with whatever that thing is right now. Cut it off, have a gigantic conversation, whatever.

Sade Curry: 44:37

Yeah, yeah, exactly Like one has to control that One has to do something comes from not just not feeling safe to just be.

Coco Madari: 44:46

Exactly, and I think those like when that comes up, I think it needs to be addressed, but not necessarily with that other person Like that sort of the feeling of urgency, the feeling of you know I need to deal with this now, or yeah, exactly that. But just like going within and then like creating that. Creating that like calm and safety, giving your nervous system what it needs and being open also to the lessons too. Like there was this one person who I'm starting to develop a friendship with and we're collaborating, and after hanging out with them, a couple of days later I started feeling angry about a certain part of the conversation that we had or that. And then I started to be like fuck that person. Well, I don't wanna have anything to do with that person. Like fuck them, blah, blah, blah.

Coco Madari: 45:48

And so I just kind of like let myself be in that process of being like well, fuck them, we're not friends anymore, clearly, and whatever. And then I just let myself be there. And then, once I let myself just like, let them go. Then I was like, oh okay, this part resolved, this part resolved. Maybe I need to communicate this. And then, yeah, so mature.

Coco Madari: 46:17

Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm a Gemini too, so I have to remember that, like sometimes I'm just like fuck y'all, like fuck these people. There is but there are.

Sade Curry: 46:26

I think there are days when everybody's brain Totally Right. Well, that's the things to allow ourselves to have that human moment and not necessarily act on it, and know that there are other elements that might come up to allow ourselves to process it without shame, without beating ourselves up. You're like oh yeah, I'm having a human moment and maybe it isn't, I don't know. I'm just gonna wait and see. Yeah, Take a moment to allow it and then make a decision about it.

Coco Madari: 46:54

Yeah, exactly, and also like your feelings are valid. And if that anger comes up, like for me, that anger came from, I felt like he was coming to the conversation from a place of not trusting me, and so I felt like his questions were like from that place. And so what I came to is like I deserve to, I deserve to be trusted or I deserve to have people like see the best in me. And that was something that I came to and I was like, oh, that's something I actually needed to remind myself of and like have that. And then I came back with something that reflected that new awareness that I had. So, yeah, Amazing.

Sade Curry: 47:38

Yeah, I thought this has been such a lovely conversation. Yeah, I'm so excited.

Coco Madari: 47:44

One thing I wanna say about the community piece before we hop off is because you asked me how things are going with that. So I'm finding now that I feel a lot less like I have rigid boundaries around community, like I can have conversations with people worrying less about oh, they're gonna like trauma dump onto me or they're gonna like emotionally whatever, they're gonna go into like a big story and I'm gonna be stuck there for 20 minutes and whatever. So I feel a lot more just at ease in setting boundaries and also knowing that I'm valuable in community, wherever community that is, and that people generally want to be accommodating and want to do better and want to learn. Especially being like a black trans human. That's been super challenging for me to really come to and trust in.

Sade Curry: 49:04

Yeah, but again it goes back to safety and there are a lot of reasons to not feel safe.

Coco Madari: 49:11

Totally and even just being in a lot of queer spaces and pride, there were times where I didn't feel safe for different reasons.

Coco Madari: 49:19

Yeah, right, and knowing that, oh, it's not about the demographic necessarily, which I think a lot of people get wrong or a lot of people have a misunderstanding around. It's like, oh well, if I'm queer and I hang out with only queer people, then I'll be safe. It's like, no, yeah, that's not, that's not necessarily true. And I went through a similar thing when I was like learning about white supremacy and stuff. I wanted to spend a lot of time with black people, which I think was important at the time, because I wasn't spending enough time with black people. But it's knowing that, like you know, there are shitty people from every demographic and there are awesome people from every demographic. And it's not about that. It's about like, who can I, who can I, who can I connect with in whatever way that we're supposed to connect?

Sade Curry: 50:10

Yeah, do you ever think about creating safety or feel safe, or what fuels your ability to feel safe around any type of person? Now?

Coco Madari: 50:23

I think, just being okay with any outcome. And I often, like, as a performer too, I rehearse different outcomes, like I might say a poem, and so I wanna be like yeah, blah, blah, blah, and then just like you know, thinking about how would I deal with that. I think that's a big thing with HSPs too. Is that kind of like rehearsal or thought around or openness around whatever outcome might happen and some thought around what you can do in that?

Sade Curry: 50:52

Yes, I love that. That's so good, yeah, okay. Well, let's wrap up with a little bit of just talking about your work with highly sensitive persons. Oh yeah, just like delving to that just a little bit. What it well? Who comes to you, why, what's the work that you do and what is the result?

Coco Madari: 51:10

Yeah, totally so. I work with multi-talented HSP creatives and I help them with overwhelm burnout, because often they have lots of different projects on the go, they have lots of things that they want to pursue and also, as highly sensitive people, the world itself can be really overwhelming and overstimulating. So we work with, like, how do we balance all of these different products and endeavors that we want to do without overloading our systems?

Sade Curry: 51:45

Yeah, amazing, amazing, hey. Where can the listeners find you if they want to connect with you, if they want to learn more about your work? Yeah, give us your, give us your handles.

Coco Madari: 51:58

Yeah, so on Instagram I'm CocoMadari C-O-C-O-M-A-D-A-R-I. And same thing with Facebook it's just CocoMadari and you can add me on Facebook. You can find me on Instagram and there you'll be able to find some of my music as well and my podcast and stuff like that. What's the name of the podcast? It's called Do Epic Shit.

Sade Curry: 52:24

All right yeah.

Coco Madari: 52:25

Do it, do it.

Sade Curry: 52:29

Thank you, Coco, for being here, for sharing your story, for being so open. I really appreciate it.

Coco Madari: 52:35

Yeah, thank you.

Sade Curry: 52:37

Thanks for having me Absolutely Listeners. Thank you for being here and spending your time with us. We appreciate that time of attention and we will see you next time. Bye.